"Real isn't how you are made," said the Skin Horse. "It's a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real. It doesn't happen all at once. You become. It takes a long time. That's why it doesn't often happen to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don't matter at all, because once you are Real you can't be ugly, except to people who don't understand.

The Boy's Uncle made me Real," he said. "That was a great many years ago; but once you are Real you can't become unreal again. It lasts for always."

--The Velveteen Rabit

"All good books are alike in that they are truer than if they had really happened, and after you are finished reading one you will feel that all that happened to you, and afterwards it all belongs to you."

Back from California. The SETP presentation is now over and done with. I have now co-presented a presentation on the X-2 program and the history of the Iven Kinchloe award to an audience of 500-some of my father’s professional colleagues.

I didn’t present nearly as well as the journalist who just wrote a book about the XPRIZE and private/commercial space flight, but I did talk more about actual facts/events and a lot less about feels. (Her presentation was at least 60% feels by volume, which is probably not the feels-to-data ratio a professional organization composed largely of engineers, pilots, and ex-military guys is looking for).

I now have a little metal propeller souvenir to put on my desk. It spins. Ask me about mid-century experimental rocket planes.